Apple’s Final Cut Studio suite of video post production apps is getting a significant makeover to better target the software to the mainstream of Apple’s customer base rather than high end professionals.

To quote Robin Kurz on the FCP-L:

Oh puuuh-leeeeeeze….

Basically, this article gets legs when it cites two new positions at Apple:

It seems to me these rumors circulate along with product life cycles. I remember when a high ranking engineer at Discovery passed me in the hallway back in 2007 and said something like ‘Avid is going to sue Apple over ProRes because Steve Bayes stole the code for DNxHD. It’s going to force Apple to revoke ProRes from FCS 2 and render it useless.‘ Bleh. This kind of stuff is marketing propaganda, corporate warfare, blatant entrenched hatred, what have you.

If anything, I’m looking forward to continued innovation and market-shaping, value added features from Apple for upcoming releases of Final Cut Studio. Just like when they brought us HD. Just like when they created the Final Cut Studio suite. Just like when they gave us ProRes and Color. Just like when they will do the next thing that blows the top off of everybody else.

Oliver Peters just posted a solidly informative review of Premiere Pro CS5 to the FCP-L:

I’m not so sure I would characterize FCP as “having been left in the dust” by Avid and Adobe. I’ve done some pretty decent testing with Premiere Pro CS5 on both the high-end FX4800 and my stock GeForce 120 cards. I run Avid MC 4 as well.

PrProCS5 is definitely better than PrProCS4, but if you are working with most DVCPROHD, uncompressed, or ProRes, the experience is pretty comparable between FCP and CS5. On the other hand, even MC4 with DNxHD is more responsive than either app and these media types. If you run native AVC-Intra 100, CS5 is very slick and as fluid as anything I’ve seen. It’s also very nice with H264 or RED, but I still wouldn’t want to cut natively with either. Yes, you can do native RED raw 4K editing, but so what. You’re not going to cut a feature this way.

The core editing functionality is still largely the same, so if you liked Premiere Pro CS4 you’ll love CS5. If you hated it, then the 64-bit performance won’t have you jumping ship. It’s not just a matter of the Mercury Playback (CUDA) optimization or 64-bit operation. Performance also gets down to other factors: CPU power, RAM and hard drive speed.

“Final Cut Pro is the first choice for professional video editors, and we’ve never been more excited about its future,” Apple spokesman Bill Evans told CNET. “The next version of Final Cut is going to be awesome, and our pro customers are going to love it.”

Disclosure, to comply with the FTC’s new rules

None of the manufacturers listed above are paying Peter Salvia to write this article and, so far, none have sent him any samples or demonstration items. Peter is a B&H Sales Affiliate and receives a commission from items linked to B&H and purchased through this site. Oh yeah, and he’s an Apple Certified Trainer so you can derive his bias for yourself.